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Spain plans to ban social media access for children under 16, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday, in a move designed to shield young people from the harms of online content. The progressive Spanish leader spoke at a summit in the United Arab Emirates, where he chided the world's biggest tech companies for allowing illegal content such as child sex abuse and nonconsensual sexualised deepfake images and videos on their platforms, saying that governments also needed to "stop turning a blind eye." "Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone," Sanchez said. "We will no longer accept that." In doing so, Spain joins a growing number of countries, including Australia and France, which have taken or are considering measures to restrict minors' access to social media. In January, French lawmakers approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to take effect at the start of the next school year
Iran speaker of parliament said Sunday that the Islamic Republic now considers all European Union militaries to be terrorist groups. The comment by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf follows an EU agreement last week to list Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group over its part in the bloody crackdown on nationwide protests in the country. Qalibaf cited a 2019 law as authorization for the announcement. That law was passed after the US listed the Guard as a terrorist group and allows for reciprocal action by Iran against any nations that follow that decision. Qalibaf made the announcement as he and others wore Guard uniforms in parliament. Qalibaf was a commander in the Guard.
The trade agreement with the European Union (EU) will help India diversify its trade relationships and provide greater market access to its exporters amid growing uncertainty due to high US tariffs, Moody's Ratings has said. The free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the EU was announced on January 27. It is likely to be signed and implemented this year only. "For India, the deal reflects its continued efforts to selectively diversify trade relationships while hedging against trade volatility arising from recent US tariff actions," Moody's said. It said that for the EU, the deal strengthens economic security by widening access to a fast-growing India while reducing vulnerability to disruptions in more concentrated trade relationships. "Although we expect limited near-term credit effects for India, the EU and individual member states, once ratified and implemented the FTA will be credit positive for both sides in raising trade volumes, enhancing the diversification of trade ..
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte insisted on Monday that Europe is incapable of defending itself without US military support and would have to more than double current military spending targets to be able to do so. "If anyone thinks here... that the European Union or Europe as a whole can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can't," Rutte told EU lawmakers in Brussels. Europe and the United States "need each other," he said. Tensions are festering within NATO over US President Donald Trump's renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Trump also said that he was slapping new tariffs on Greenland's European backers, but later dropped his threats after a "framework" for a deal over the mineral-rich island was reached, with Rutte's help. Few details of the agreement have emerged. The 32-nation military organisation is bound together by a mutual defence clause, Article 5 of NATO's founding Washington trea
Tensions over US President Donald Trump's plans to take control of Greenland have driven a wedge in the once iron-clad link between MAGA and Europe's far-right. The rift seems to signal that ideological alignment alone may not be enough to temper worries among European nationalists over Trump's interventionism abroad. Far-right leaders in Germany, Italy and France have strongly criticised Trump's Greenland plans. Even Nigel Farage, a longtime ally of Trump and head of the Reform UK nationalist party, called Trump's Greenland moves "a very hostile act." During a debate Tuesday in the European Parliament, far-right lawmakers typically aligned with Trump overwhelmingly supported halting a EU-US trade pact over their uneasiness with his threats, calling them "coercion" and "threats to sovereignty." MAGA's trans-Atlantic partners -------------------------------------- Such a divergence between Trump and his European acolytes came as some surprise. Far-right parties surged to power in
Denmark's prime minister insisted that her country can't negotiate on its sovereignty on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he agreed on a "framework of a future deal" on Arctic security with the head of NATO, and she has been "informed that this has not been the case." Trump on Wednesday abruptly scrapped the tariffs he had threatened to impose on eight European nations to press for US control over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. It was a dramatic reversal shortly after he insisted he wanted to get the island "including right, title and ownership." He said "additional discussions" on Greenland were being held concerning the Golden Dome missile defence programme, a multilayered, USD 175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space. Trump offered few details, saying they were still being worked out. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement that security in the Arctic is a matter for all of NATO, and it i
Barely a month into his presidency, Joe Biden had a message for Europe. "America is back," Biden told the Munich Security Conference in 2021. "The transatlantic alliance is back." It was a promise Biden delivered often as he sought to cast the disruptions of his predecessor, Donald Trump, as an anomaly. But nearly five years later, Biden's assurances have proven short-lived. In his second term, Trump has cast aside alliances forged over seven decades with Europe that helped lead to the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has hectored leaders, making demands and levelling accusations more commonly associated with enemies. In the process, he has rocked the stability that has sustained the relationships and left countries to chart a course without US leadership. The most stark example of this shift has been Trump's threat to take over Greenland, dismissing the nation as a large "piece of ice" as he demanded that Denmark cede control to the US, a move that
US President Donald Trump will appear on Wednesday with other high-profile government and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a day after the elite event produced contentious statements and economic threats arising from tensions between the US and Europe. Nearly 3,000 high-level participants from 130 countries, plus an untold number of activists and observers, are expected to converge on the annual event scheduled to last through Friday for dialogue, debate and deal-making in the Alpine resort. Trump's third visit as president comes as US allies worry about his ambition to take over Greenland, while Latin America grapples with his efforts to seize Venezuela's oil. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday called Trump's planned new tariffs on eight of its countries over Greenland a mistake and questioned Trump's trustworthiness. French President Emmanuel Macron said the EU could retaliate by deploying one of its most powerful ...
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday said America's relations with Europe remain strong and urged trading partners to take a deep breath and let tensions driven by the Trump administration's new tariff threats over Greenland play out. I think our relations have never been closer, he said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. On Saturday, Trump announced a 10 per cent import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations that have rallied around Denmark in the wake of his stepped up calls for the United States to take over the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland. Trump has insisted the US needs the territory for security reasons against possible threats from China and Russia.
Intimidation," threats and blackmail are just some of the terms being used by European Union leaders to describe US President Donald Trump's warning that he will slap new tariffs on nations opposing American control of Greenland. European language has hardened since Trump returned to the White House 12 months ago. Now it's in reaction to the previously unthinkable idea that NATO's most powerful member would threaten to seize the territory of another ally. Trade retaliation is likely should Trump make good on his tariff announcement. A year into Trump 2.0, Europe's faith in the strength of the transatlantic bond is fading fast. For some, it's already disappeared. The flattery of past months has not worked and tactics are evolving as the Europeans try to manage threats from an old ally just as they confront the threat of an increasingly hostile Russia. Trump's first term brought NATO to the brink of collapse. I feared that NATO was about to stop functioning, former Secretary-General